Newtown dad to mark year since Wis. temple rampage

Members of the Sikh temple of Wisconsin put up an American flag before a service Sunday, August, 12, 2012. It was the first service since Michael Page, 40, killed five men and one woman, and injured two other men.

HARTFORD, Conn. - Since his 6-year-old daughter was killed in the Connecticut school shooting, Robbie Parker has been encouraging people to try to find peace in tragedy.

He told reporters gathered outside a church the day after last December's massacre that he was not mad, and he felt sympathy for the family of the gunman. He has since spoken to a handful of groups, delivering talks that he says have allowed him to process his own grief while helping others.

Next weekend, he will deliver an address at a Wisconsin event marking the anniversary of the Aug. 5 attack on a Sikh temple, where a white supremacist gunned down six worshippers.

"You can find ways to rise above the bad," Parker said.

Parker was invited to speak in Wisconsin by Pardeep Kaleka, whose father was killed in the Oak Creek temple shooting. Kaleka said the two shootings are linked by issues including the suffering and isolation of the gunmen, who in turn unleashed their own pain on others.

"Our grief is unimaginable, but me personally, I lost my dad who was 65 years old and lived a full life," he said. "When you lose a child, the way it happened, and you can make something good out of it, I think that's powerful."

Parker is to speak Aug. 3 before a run honoring the six people killed by the gunman, Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old Army veteran. Page also wounded a police officer before killing himself. He had ties to white supremacist groups, but the FBI concluded following an investigation that his motives may never be known.

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Newtown dad to mark year since Wis. temple rampage

HARTFORD, Conn. ? Since his 6-year-old daughter was killed in the Connecticut school shooting, Robbie Parker has been encouraging people to try to find peace in tragedy.

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